Blogres is the first international bloggers’ congress in Slovenia and it will take place on the 9th of June, 2007 at Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana.
The idea of the organisers for this event is to encourage discussion on important themes being opened up online by the public, especially by the blogosphere, intergrate a community of bloggers, who live online but also communicate in person, meet with individuals from different cultures, who can share their experiences with us.

I think it’s a great idea, and for us it’s another cool opportunity to go spend a week-end and have a good time in beautiful Ljubljana, as I was been lucky enough to get invited as a speaker! The theme of my presentation will be “blogging as a business opportunity”. My idea is to focus on how the relationship between advisers and consumers has changed and how blogging can help fill the gap….

Of course there will be a lot of other interesting subjects discussed during the day as well as workshops, like the “pimp your blog” one hosted by Ozren.
I’m also looking forward to the party in Luna Park, where the atmosphere is always so special!

So see you at Blogres!

Why did Romans, Celts, and even prehistoric settlers submerge their personal belongings, from swords to dishes, in a shallow river in Slovenia?

A very interesting story in this month National Geographic magazine.

Archaeologist Andrej Gaspari is haunted by pieces of the past. His hometown river, the Ljubljanica, has yielded thousands of them—Celtic coins, Roman luxuries, medieval swords—all from a shallow 12-mile (19 kilometers) stretch. Those who lived near and traveled along the stream that winds through Slovenia’s capital of Ljubljana considered it sacred, Gaspari believes. That would explain why generations of Celts, Romans, and earlier inhabitants offered treasures—far too many to be accidental—to the river during rites of passage, in mourning, or as thanksgiving for battles won.

But Gaspari may never be able to explain for certain why the Ljubljanica holds one of Europe’s richest stores of river treasures, many of them remarkably preserved by the soft sediments and gentle waters. Too many pieces of the puzzle have already disappeared.

During the past two decades, sport divers have made the river their playground, removing most of some 10,000 to 13,000 objects found so far. Even though removing artifacts from the Ljubljanica has long been illegal, professional archaeologists have been forced to compete with private collectors. Some divers sold their loot to museums; others to the highest bidder. Some kept their treasures private. Many artifacts have left the country, untraceable. Gaspari’s greatest torment comes from the knowledge that few maverick collectors know—or care—where exactly their prizes were found. For an archaeologist, an object’s meaning comes as much from its context—location, association with other objects—as from the prize itself. Without context, there is no story.

Mladen Mück is one of Gaspari’s tormentors. Now in his 40s, the Bosnian-born architect began diving in the river in 1985 and has brought up about a thousand pieces. In his kitchen in Ljubljana, a plastic box contains prehistoric tools. Upstairs, dusty cases hold other rare artifacts, including deer antler axes. Mück says he has no intention of selling what he has found. Like many collectors, he babies his goods and claims they are better off with him than with the authorities.

“More people see these artifacts in my house than if I gave them to a museum,” he says with a dismissive wave. “There they would sit in a basement.”

Gaspari disagrees. A team at the National Museum of Slovenia is preparing an exhibit of the river’s treasures that will tour Europe in 2008, he says. Still, he hopes that someday Mück will hand over his items. “My heart is strong,” quips the 33-year-old archaeologist. If Mück is obstinate, “I will outlive him.”

Ciril Jazbec is 19 years old fella from Slovenia and he loves photography. His work can inspire you. Check out his web site…

In the latest issue of Wallpaper the future Ljubljana Air Traffic Control Tower gets it’s 15 minutes of fame. Well I have to say that i do like our retro airport, but agree that it’s time to shift into the 5th gear. I can’t wait to get some more news about it… but for now this is the only “teaser” i could find:

Air traffic controllers at Ljublana airport will be moving out of their 1960s tower and into this splendis new 100m structure in 2008. The airport is expanding with a new terminal, hence the need for new tower and air traffic control centre. According to Boštjan Vuga, of Slovenia’s Sadar Vuga Architects, air traffic controllers can use the centre to “relax after intense working hours, read, work out, look at the mountains or sleep in a capsule dorm”.

And what I find cool is that on the same page they talk about the new towers for ground zero in New York.

Watch the video

Finally managed to recover and upload this video that I edited back in the winter 2004.
It was a little snowboard contest organised in Stari Vrh, a small mountain resort next to Ljubljana.
There was a big air followed by a rail contest. It was freazing cold but it was full good!

Tags: starivrh, slovenia, snowboard

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by dikonaca with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

Every once in a while on saturday mornings, along the Ljubljanica, there is the Art street, where slovene artists come to show and sell their paintings, crafts and so on. There are some really beautiful things to buy, like for example pictures on wood or illustrations from Mojca Sekuli. I created a photo album with some pics as well as pics from the market. And then there is the street art nicely developing on walls around and in the center of LJ. Ozren created a group pool on Flickr with some of his really nice pics of LJ street art to celebrate and document this form of free expression.

Matjaz Krivic is probably the best-known slovene photographer. He is a “globe-trotting photographer specialising in capturing the personality and grandeur of indigeneous people and places”.
We have always been fascinated by the purity of his pictures and were super stocked to discover his open air expo in the Tivoli Park in Ljubljana. This expo focuses on Earth temples :

Throughout my travels, I have noticed one special trait shared by cultures all over the world. People seem to have a need for and attraction to a special place of worship and medidation be it a church, a mountain, a river, or simply a rock stuck in the ground. [...] My aim here is to capture this feeling of gratitude and adoration for life on earth, and to share it with those who see these photographs.

Please check out his beautiful website here and get inspired.

If you remember this previous post about the cool “Street Art” expo which was held in Ljubljana’s International Centre of Graphic Arts in april – may, we were saying that Ljubljana would soon get “space invaded”!
Well it’s done and we tried to hunt some space invaders out last WE. There are 20 spread all over Ljubljana and we only managed to spot 6!!! You can get a hint here and try to keep your eyes opened! Space invaders hunting is fun!

We were in Ljubljana this week-end, so we went to check out the “Street Art: Stencils, Posters and Stickers / a Low-Tech Re-action!” exposition in Ljubljana’s International Centre of Graphic Arts right in the heart of the Tivoli park.

This expo which will go on until may 14th showcases the work of international street artists as well as slovene. If you are in LJ or planning to go there, it’s definitly a nice expo to attend.

This internationally conceived exhibition presents stencils, posters, stickers, and other strategies for presenting such forms of visual intervention in the public space. Space Invader from France, Flying Fortress from Germany, M-city from Poland, and The London Police from the Netherlands are among the most admired and influential creators of this kind of work abroad; they are joined in the exhibition by the Croatian artists Filjio & Kenova and the Slovene artists Lele, Rone84, Ioke42, Sektion 1.3, Tacek, Zek Advance, Skrana, Ratt One and Ash.

I took some pictures of the expo and you can check them out here. Moreover I uploaded all my collection of pics from Ljubljana street art that I collected during my stay between 2003 and 2005. Maybe living across the street from Metelkova mesto inspired me. Oh and beware! Ljubljana will soon be space invaded!